At present in the United States approximately 40% of the energy consumed in commercial buildings, and approximately 30% of the energy used in residential homes, is consumed by Heating, Ventilating, Air Conditioning and Refrigeration (HVAC/R) systems. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has reported that the operating conditions of approximately 74% of all HVAC/R systems are maladjusted compared to their designed peak efficiency due to these HVAC/R systems being undercharged or overcharged with refrigerant. The energy saved by increasing the efficiency of HVAC/R system could be utilized to reduce the reliance on energy sources, such as oil, gas, and coal.
Analogue pressure gauge manifolds include two round pressure gauges, one for the low pressure side of the system and the other for the high pressure side of the HVAC/R system being serviced. A pressure scale is displayed on the outer perimeter of the round faceplate of each pressure sensor with 2 or 3 corresponding refrigerant saturation temperature scales in inner diameters of the faceplate. A technician observes where the needle of the pressure gauge is overlaying the respective inner diameter refrigerant saturation scale to estimate the boiling/condensing (saturation) temperature for the measured pressure.
In response to the Montreal Protocol Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, refrigerant blends have replaced refrigerants containing ozone depleting chlorine. Generally, the refrigerant blends do not have well defined pressure-temperature boiling/condensing point relationships. Further, the three most common refrigerants pre-Montreal Protocol, which were used in greater than 90% of HVAC/R systems, have been replaced with over seventy-five refrigerants commonly used today. The absence of well-defined pressure-temperature relationships and the large number of different refrigerants utilized make monitoring present HVAC/R systems utilizing analogue sensors nearly impossible.
Current digital tools for HVAC/R systems are limited to gathering data associated with a single metric of an HVAC/R system and do not facilitate verification of the accuracy of the measured metric.
Improvements to analyzers for HVAC/R systems are desired.